


Stanley Uris Takes a Call

by KillerSnotMonster



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, I suppose, IT Chapter Two Fix-It, Multi, Suicidal Thoughts, okay so this is pretty much stozier brotp with a side of reddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21881998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerSnotMonster/pseuds/KillerSnotMonster
Summary: While drawing his bath, Stan gets another unexpected phone call.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 27
Kudos: 228
Collections: IT Fandom Secret Santa 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexATL64](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexATL64/gifts).



> Written for the itfandomprompts Secret Santa 2019! Inspired by my giftee's preferred pairings list and also by a tumblr post I saw because, well...yeah. I'll link to it at the very end.
> 
> Beta'd by Kat, AJ, and Melanie. And also a dude from my LMT class. Thanks, y'all!
> 
> This uses Muschiettiverse characterizations and details, with some book stuff mixed in.
> 
> Milo, I hope you enjoy! The rest is on its way, just needs some sprucin' up. :)

“I’ll see you soon, Stan the Man.”

The call had lasted all of a minute, and that one minute had been enough to upend everything.

He’d told Patty once that he feared his life was the eye of some storm. And there was a storm, alright. Stan was more certain of it now than he ever had been. There was some  _ knowledge _ fighting to press its way to the front of Stan’s mind. A dark, cyclonic knowledge. Disruptive. Uncontrollable. And he sensed it would dawn upon him more brutally than his recent recognition of William Denbrough’s name had done. (And  _ why _ had he suddenly made that connection a few months ago? Was it some cosmic sign? Some preternatural anticipation of Mike’s phone call?)

He returned to the couch, set his phone down. He picked up the final puzzle piece from where he’d set it on the glass tabletop and gazed down at his left palm, which now stung rather badly. There hadn’t always been a scar there, had there? No… 

Cecelia Bartoli and György Fischer continued to play over the stereo. The record was less than a third of the way over.

“Who was that, Stan?”

“Hmmm?”

“Who was that on the phone?”

“No one,” he said, turning the puzzle piece over in his hands.

Patty laughed. “Really. Who was it?”

“No one, really.”

“Hm, okay,” she replied in an  _ If you say so _ kind of voice. “So do you want to start planning Buenos Aires?”

“Right this minute?” he answered dazedly. But his words were only a bookmark holding his place here in this room, in this conversation. His mind had gone almost entirely elsewhere.

If Mike was calling all the others back, he must think there was something they could do. About…

_ It _ .

Stanley shuddered. But this was nothing more than a feeling and a euphemistic title. The details had not yet washed over him. But they would. He was certain they would.

But in the meantime, what  _ did _ he know? Other than fear.

There had been a group of them. The Losers. They had fought It. Defeated It. Together. And that was important. He  _ knew _ that. And he remembered, with a flinch, how much he himself had not wanted to go.

Go...where?

“Well, not right now, not if you don’t want to,” Patty was saying. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he replied, forcing his voice to remain calm. If he could do that, he could manage the rest, surely. And as he said it, a course of action laid itself out in his mind. “There’s something I need to do,” he said. “I just remembered.” She didn’t need to know those statements weren’t connected in the way she thought they were.

“For work?” she asked, sounding surprised. “But you aren’t meeting with any clients until Monday.”

“It won’t take long,” he assured her, and strode from the room.

He went into his home office, sat at the desk and pulled out a pad of paper. He still had the puzzle piece in his hand. He set it beside the paper and thought for a moment. Then he picked up a pen and got to writing.

In the end, he had one note for Patty which included the sentiments she would need, along with instructions and Mike Hanlon’s phone number; one version of another letter, addressed to the Losers; and a second version of the letter to the Losers, based on a hunch he had even though what he could remember was certainly far from everything. He made four copies of the first version of the Losers letter, hoped it made enough sense, and tucked each page into a separate envelope while the paper was still warm. To the envelope that held the second version of the letter, he attached a post-it note:  _ To the Mouth? Ask Mike. _

He wrote Patty’s name on her envelope, then straightened them all into a neat stack and set them in the outbox on his desk, underneath a piece of work-related mail he’d planned on taking to the post office in the morning. Patty would get around to dealing with the office after a few days or so, he expected. And that would do fine.

“Hey, babylove,” he called as he went back to the kitchen one last time. “I think I’ll take a bath.”

“Okay,” she replied, peering at him bemusedly over her laptop.

He didn’t linger, didn’t tell her he loved her. The letter said everything she would need. For now, it was best not to draw things out.

Once he’d locked the bathroom door behind him, he shed his cardigan and set it, folded neatly, on the lid of the toilet. He turned the water on to fill the tub, held his fingers under the spigot until the temperature felt right, and then crossed back to the vanity. He pulled the box of safety razor refills from the cabinet, scrunching his eyes shut at a half-remembered pain. But he would remember it all, and soon. He was sure of it. The twinge in his left hand seemed to demand it.  _ There is more pain underneath, _ it seemed to say.  _ You must  _ feel  _ it. You must  _ remember _ it. _

For now, he remembered a promise. He remembered Bill Denbrough, the only person besides Mike Hanlon whose full name was in his mind yet.

He opened his eyes and shut the cabinet door. The little scars around his face, which he could see so clearly in the mirror now... They were from something horrible. Nasty. And he didn’t want to remember, never wanted to  _ really _ remember, but the memories throbbed under some membrane deep in his mind, waiting. Threatening.

He started unbuttoning his shirt.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. It must be Mike texting details. He ought to have left the thing in his office. All else that remained between himself and his goal were obstacles. Best to be ignored.

But the buzz of the phone continued. It wasn’t a text. It was a call.

He decided to ignore it. This phone call wouldn’t matter, in the big scheme of things.

But perhaps it was a relative.  _ I should have known something was wrong when he didn’t answer the phone _ , someone would claim later.  _ If only I had been able to speak to him! _

He didn’t want to cause anyone any trouble or suffering. Wasn’t that the point of the entire endeavor?

Ah, so why not answer it then?

He pulled it from his pocket. It was a nameless caller from a 312 area code.

Who...?

_ An old friend, _ the answer came to him with unquestionable certainty.

Frowning, and wanting to be able to doubt his intuition—about the storm, about the phone call, about all things and on all counts—he answered it.

“Hello?” he said cautiously. “Stanley Uris speaking.”

“Stan?” a man’s voice repeated, sounding awed and relieved. “Is that you?” There was a thin sort of laugh that might have blended into a sob.

“Are you drunk?” Stan asked automatically. He’d fielded a handful of vaguely similar phone calls from drunk friends over the years. He didn’t know who it could be, with that area code, and unsaved in his contact list. But a friend was a friend.

“Fuck. Yeah, I’m definitely a little drunk,” the voice at the other end replied.

“Who is this?”

“Shit, right. Uh, Rich. It’s Richard Tozier. Mike Hanlon gave me your number. You know, Richie. From Derry.”

“Oh.” The mess of impending memory tried to shape itself into Richie Tozier but didn’t quite succeed. There were only flashes. Thick, thick glasses. An obnoxious cry of  _ Stanny! _ from across a downtown street. And, for some reason, crying. And blood. Terror was still there, too. But it was softened somehow by this faint recollection of a friend.

“How...have you been?” Stan asked awkwardly, sitting down in front of the tub.

“Terrible! You?” An inebriated chuckle. “So, uh. Do you remember, like, anything?” Richie asked. “I’ve got, like, a few names.”

“You do?” Stan asked interestedly, “I’ve been trying to remember ever since Mike called, but it’s...hard.” He frowned. “Bill Denbrough just clicked in my head a few months ago, though. After seeing his books all over the place for years.”

“Ah, no shit! That’s Bill? Of course that’s Bill. Did you read any of that shit? There was a movie a couple years ago, too. I hear they’re filming another one.”

“Yeah, I’ve been reading everything he’s written now that I know it’s him. But you said you had names.” He twisted and knelt up to reach the bathtub faucet and shut the water off. “Who?”

“Uh. Fuckin’ Henry Bowers.”

“I think you can keep that one. I don’t want it.”

“And Bev. Mike…”

“Genius, Richie.”

“Oh, fuck you. Bev, Mike, Bill, Ben. And you. I remembered your name first I think. And...and Eddie.”

“Eddie?” Stan repeated, trying to line the name up with some fragment of memory. There was something. Eddie and Richie. Richie and Eddie.

“Yeah. Do you remember him?” Richie said, sounding hopeful.

“No... No, I don’t. Not really,” Stan admitted. “I remember... I remember being scared, mostly.”

“Yeah, me too, man. What’s that about?”

“I... I’m not sure.” Before he could try again to touch the edges of the memory, there was a very light tap at the door.

“Stan?” came Patty’s voice from the hall.

“Hold on,” Stan said, as much to Richie as to Patty. He stood and crossed to the door, unlocked it, pulled it open. “Hi,” he said, feeling a slight chill at the thought that he’d entered the bathroom earlier with the expectation of never seeing her again. 

“Another phone call?” Patty mouthed, nodding at the phone in his hand.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she whispered, handing him a beer, as she often did as he soaked in the bath, and stepping back from the door with a curious look.

Stan shut the door on her gently.

“Who was that?” Richie asked.

“My wife,” Stan answered on an exhale, sitting back down with the bottle of beer. Patty had thoughtfully already removed the cap. He took a sip.

“No shit. You got hitched, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Recently, or—”

“About eighteen years ago.”

“Wow. Fresh out of college and everything, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you drinking?”

“She brought me a beer.”

“Nice.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I am absolutely drinking. I’ve been drinking all night.”

“Married.”

“N-O. Hell no.” A sloppy laugh—perhaps a nervous one? “You’re living in Georgia?”

“Yes,” Stan answered slowly, not missing the abrupt subject change.

“Is it super fucking hot?”

“Sometimes.”

“I’m in Chicago. I went to southern fucking Cali for school and then somehow wound up back out here.”

“And what do you do out there?”

“Ah, do not ask me such things, Stanny. Google it later.” A smirk was practically audible as he added, “What about you? Anything good if I Google you?”

“You’ll probably get my firm’s website. I’m an accountant.”

“Wow, that’s like a real job and everything. I’mma look you up.”

“Do you even know my last name?” Stan asked.

“Duh, it’s Urine.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Was that supposed to be a pun?”

Stan shook his head and swigged his beer.

“Your name’s Stanley Uris. I’m not an idiot. I mean, maybe I am, but I know your name. You said it when you answered the phone. And also I asked Mike when he gave me your number. And he told me you’re in Atlanta because I didn’t know if you were in fucking Timbuktu or something and it was fucking three in the morning and a million dollars to call you.”

“Okay.” He wasn’t sure what else to say to that.

“Your website is classy. Your face isn’t on it though.”

“Nope.”

“Well, congrats on the marital and career success. Kids, too?”

Of course, Richie had no way of knowing what a painful jab that kind of question had become. Stan took another sip of beer before answering, “No. But not by choice.”

“Shit. Uh, sorry.”

“So, um…” Stan wanted to move the conversation away from this particular pain. “What do you do? Should I Google you?”

“No, don’t, because I do not want to talk about it,” Richie insisted immediately. “It has not been smooth sailing around these parts, and I have imbibed in the interest of forgetting it. Google me later, baby, and you can give me shit about it tomorrow night.” He paused. “You’re going, right? To Derry?”

Ah, no.

There was that fear. That terrible, smothering fear.

But now there was also a tiny pocket of comforting familiarity in the middle of that fear. A safe place amidst the storm. Not just a temporary, illusory calm. Something certain. Something permanent. If only he could remember it more clearly…

“I…”

But if he were to remember it, he would also have to face the rest.

“Mike said he needed help with something. Did he tell you what it was?” Richie asked.

“Uh, he… No, he didn’t.”

“Yeah…” Richie seemed thoughtful. “If it was gonna take longer than, like, a couple days, he would’ve said something, right?”

Stanley didn’t know. “Maybe.” He gulped more beer, swallowing loudly enough for it to be audible over the phone.

“Me too, dude,” Richie commiserated. “But you’re going, right?”

_ I would need to do a few things, _ he had told Mike. He would need to...get his affairs in order. Just in case.

But they were already in order, weren’t they? And that’s why the bath had seemed so obvious, so easy. His life was all completely ordered. And his death would be, too.

He remembered standing outside an old, decrepit house. He remembered not wanting to go in. He didn’t quite remember exactly what had happened  _ inside _ the house. But it had been bad. Very bad. And if he hadn’t gone in...it would still have been bad. For his friends, and maybe still for him too.

“I...I have clients on Monday. I don’t really—”

“So fucking leave on Sunday morning. Tell Mike you can only stay til Sunday. Hell, I’ll tell him that too. I don’t know what this is about, but I don’t want to spend more than a weekend in fucking Derry, man. Fuck that place. I remember  _ basically _ nothing, but  _ fuck _ that place.”

Stan’s phone buzzed. He took it from his ear and tapped the notification. It was the name of a restaurant, an address, and a time. As if it was given that Stan would meet Mike and the others there.

“Jade of the Orient,” Richie said as Stan raised the phone back to his ear. “You just get Mike’s text?”

“Yeah.”

“So do you think you’ll go?”

Stan stared contemplatively across the room at the box of razors still perched on the vanity. “Do you think I should?” he asked softly. He’d never really depended on someone else’s ideas of what he should do, or at least he hadn’t in a long while. But he was suddenly feeling wrong-footed.

“If it sucks, we can bail,” Richie suggested. “I am going in one hundred percent ready to bail.”

“Yes. I suppose I… I could maybe. Do that. Um.” He didn’t like this. He liked when he felt like he had a direct, executable plan. Not vague contingencies.

“You said you have clients Monday. Do you have clients tomorrow?”

“I don’t.”

“So...come to Derry. And then if it all goes to shit after Mike’s reunion dinner, go right back home.”

Stan didn’t answer. He felt like he might cry, though whether from fear or frustration he did not know.

“I mean, that’s what I’m doing, anyway,” Richie said. “So.”

“It’s really short notice to travel so far,” Stan said, groping for a cogent argument. He knew it wasn’t  _ that _ far. It was the same side of the continental United States. In theory, there was even time to  _ drive _ if he got on the road before dawn.

“Yeah, I’m probably just barely gonna make it,” Richie said. “I have a flight from here to Boston, then from Boston to Bangor, and then a little drive into Derry. But the first flight isn’t until, like, three o’clock in the afternoon. So if there’s a delay of  _ any _ kind, there’s no way in hell I’m getting to the damn restaurant by 8:30.”

Stan didn’t answer, and Richie pressed on, seeming unable to accept silence, “What are you even doing right now? It sounds like you’re in a bathroom or something. The sound’s been all echoey and weird.”

“I was about to take a bath when you called.”

“What are you, eighty?” Richie laughed. There was something oddly familiar about the gibe.

A sudden beeping sound on the line interrupted Stan’s thoughts. He checked his phone screen, but Richie was already grumbling an explanation. “God, it’s my fucking manager.”

“Your manager?” Stan questioned, trying to imagine what sort of job might entail managerial phone calls this late on a Thursday evening.

“Yeah, I’ve ignored his last three calls. Think I should take this one?”

“What do you think he wants to talk to you about?”

“Ah, too late, now I’ve missed this one.”

“It seems like it might be important.”

Richie sighed. “You’re probably right, Stanny. You’re probably right.”

There was a pause.

“So… Are you going to call him back?”

“I guess,” Richie replied resignedly. “I’ll… Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, huh?”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, thanks for answering the fucking phone, Stan. It’s been a weird night.”

“Um. Yeah. It...has.”

“Bye, Stanley,” Richie said somberly.

“Bye, Richard.”

There was a laugh, one last “Bye”, and then Richie ended the call.

Stan sat there, his back against the tub, and considered things. He considered the room, the mirrors no longer foggy as the bath had long since cooled. And he considered his options.

Downing the last of the beer, he rose to his feet and unstopped the drain. As the water level lowered, he put the razors back into the cabinet and gathered up his cardigan before going to the kitchen to drop the empty bottle in the recycle bin. Patty’s laptop sat closed on the island, but Patty herself had disappeared and the classical music had been shut off.

He found her in the bedroom, sitting up in bed with a William Denbrough book.

“I don’t know how you read these, Stanley,” she said with a sigh.

He disregarded this for the moment and sat down in the chair by her side of the bed. “Babylove, I have to go somewhere this weekend.”

She lowered the book and frowned at him, confused. “Who was on the phone?”

“They were…um. Friends. From a very long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Couple decades.”

“What did they want?”

“They want to meet tomorrow night up in Maine.”

“Maine!” Her eyebrows lifted. “That’s far.”

“I know it is. I’ll have to look at plane tickets.”

“You seem nervous,” she observed.

“I’m not,” he lied.

“Do you want to go?” she asked.

“I think I might need to.”

“For how long?”

He chose Richie’s optimistic answer. “The weekend, maybe.”

“Well…” Patty scrutinized him. “If it won’t be a problem for work, I think you should do it. A get-together with old friends sounds fun.”

He laughed darkly. “I don’t know about that.”

“Is something the matter, do you think?”

_ Yes! _ he could have screamed. But instead he gazed back at her. She really was  _ so _ lovely. “I guess I’ll find out,” he said calmly.

“Can I help with anything?”

“No,” he answered, standing and stretching his arms over his head before bending to kiss her forehead. “I’m going to try to find a flight.”

It seemed he would be in the same boat as Richie, as far as timing. The most direct route would put him on the first plane in the afternoon, with a layover in Philly before continuing up to Maine on another flight. He would certainly be at least half an hour late, but he supposed it would have to do. It was something, that they were going at all. What group of long-forgotten childhood friends had ever reconvened at such an immediate, insistent invitation?

Flights booked and car reserved, he set to packing. He got out a good carry-on size suitcase and filled it with a selection of clothes to last the weekend, with spare socks and underwear in case he needed to stretch his wardrobe over more days. Not that he would. He had clients on Monday.

He unearthed a few travel-sized toiletries from the top shelf of the linen closet, grabbed the William Denbrough novel he’d been reading off the bedside table, and went to wheel his packed suitcase to the living room. He stopped at the door to his office and, leaving the suitcase in the hall, went to his desk. He’d abandoned the puzzle piece there, he saw. He picked it up as he removed the stack of letters from under the outgoing business mail. These items retrieved, he returned to the hall, unzipped the suitcase partway, and shoved the letters into it. Once he’d pulled the zipper closed again, he went on down the hall, through the living room and into the front hall, where he placed the suitcase by the door, ready for the next day’s travels.

He stood there in the entryway and looked at the coat hooks, the umbrella stand, the shoe tray… Everything was so polite, so orderly. Not just here in this area of his home, but in his life in general. Yes, there were times for spontaneity, and that was always good fun. And business dealings could never be  _ entirely _ preordained. But there was a reliability. Things always got taken care of.

He didn’t know how things would be in Derry. All he knew was that friends would be waiting for him there, and that he was afraid.

On his way back through the house, he paused at the coffee table and pressed the final puzzle piece into place. Then, feeling as though the evening had lasted a century, he went back to Patty and got ready for bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Milo!
> 
> Beta'd by AJ, Kat, Melanie, and Frank. Thank you!
> 
> And thank you to everyone who's left feedback so far. I love you! This chapter is a different sort of thing because it covers events that are _very fractionally_ altered from canon. You'll notice I've lifted some lines from the movie. Not too many, I hope. I look forward to hearing what you think! <3

**CHAPTER TWO**

After a two-hour flight from Atlanta up to Philadelphia, an hour layover, a one-and-three-quarter-hour flight from Philadelphia to Bangor, and a half-hour drive from Bangor to Derry, Stan pulled into the Jade of the Orient parking lot at 9:12 on Friday night feeling inexpressibly strange.

There was a small group by the door as he exited his car and crossed the lot. A man in a chambray shirt. A woman with short red curls. A man with glasses and a too-loud voice.

Stan had Googled Richie Tozier that morning. The job he had not wanted to discuss was stand-up comedy, apparently. His show last night had gone awry, which Stan suspected was related to Mike’s phone call, and had been cut short when Richie had excused himself from the stage after delivering half a shitty joke. _(Trashmouth!_ Stan had said to himself as he read a tabloid site’s coverage of the embarrassment. _I thought of that earlier but couldn’t remember.)_ Anyway, the bespectacled man was certainly him.

Stan felt a tug of familiarity as he approached them. He paused a short distance away, frowning as his memory sparked. The woman was Bev, of course. And the other man was...Ben? Perhaps. Yes. Ben. He remembered them, a little. But it was strange, only having the faintest memories of their child-selves, and being able to recognize them now after so many years. Things had happened, after all. Families had moved away, friendships had crumbled with distance and time.

Richie spotted Stan.

“Holy _shit!_ ” he shouted. “ _Stan?_ Please tell me you’re Stan."

Stanley raised a hand in a hesitant wave, feeling a faint smile creeping onto his face.

Richie rushed forward and nearly knocked the two of them to the ground with the force of his hug.

“You fucking made it,” Richie said as he pulled away, beaming. “I thought you might pussy out, but here you are.” He slapped Stan on the back a little overexuberantly and went on, “And you look fucking amazing too! What’s up with that? You and Bev and Ben can all be beautiful together. Look at you all. Jesus Christ.”

Bev and Ben. Beverly Marsh. Benjamin Hanscom.

“Hello,” Stan greeted the two of them, grinning at the sense of relief and familiarity that washed over him.

“Stan!” Bev exclaimed warmly, coming forward for a hug.

“Hey, man,” Ben said, hugging him too.

Once hugs were exchanged and they’d noted their significant lateness, the four of them entered the restaurant together. The hostess escorted them to the private Hanlon table, partitioned from the rest of the dining area by fish tanks and decorative walls. Just inside was a metal gong, which Richie struck before Stan had a chance to properly take in his surroundings.

“This meeting of the Losers’ Club has officially begun,” Richie announced, looking at the people already gathered there as the reverberations of the gong faded.

Stan followed Richie’s gaze. _Eddie_ , his stirring memory supplied. He looked well but uncomfortable.

And there was Bill, and there was Mike.

“Wow, look at these guys!” Eddie remarked to the other two, his tone projecting an anxious attempt at casualness.

Stan felt a dark weight warring with a mess of bright memories in his mind. He glanced at Beverly, who was closest to him. She frowned down at the floor for a moment, and Stan thought the distant gloom on her face must match his own.

Bill edged around Eddie and looked at Richie, then at Ben, then at Stan, then at Bev.

“Wow,” he said. “Hi.”

Richie moved in for a hug. “Hey, dude.”

“Yes,” Beverly said faintly. Richie and Bill turned toward her, puzzled, as they stepped apart. Her expression cleared as she scanned everyone’s faces. “Oh, come here,” she said. “I’m hugging you. I’m hugging all of you.” And she flung herself at Bill, and at Richie again, and set off a lengthy round of hugs that only ended when Mike pulled away from the others and dragged a chair out from the big round table. 

“Why don’t we all sit down,” he suggested. “It’s getting late.”

“I’m sorry we were so late,” Bev apologized with a grimace as she and Bill joined him. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I didn’t even stop by the hotel yet.”

“Better late than never,” Richie said, taking the seat beside her. “Or whatever the fuck.”

Stan claimed the chair to Richie’s left. “Are you staying at the Town House?” he asked Bev. It was the only accommodation in Derry, really. Stan had wondered, though, when calling for a reservation that morning, whether it was too close to the belly of the beast. But everyone else, save Mike, chimed in on Bev’s “Yes” as they seated themselves around the table.

Eddie, who wound up on Stan’s other side, was a vocal anti-buffet proponent. So, after listening to him cite the hazards of bacterial growth and cross-contamination, they all settled in to pore over the table service menu.

“What do you think?” Bev asked, peering over to see what pages of the menu Richie and Stan were reading. “Some platters and we can split everything?”

“I was thinking we would do that,” agreed Mike. Then he extended a hand in Stan’s direction. “I don’t know how strict you are, Stan,” he said apologetically. “But I was hoping it’d be easy for you to find something here.”

“Yes, I think it will be okay,” Stan replied with a nod, flipping to the next page.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Richie listening to the exchange with a frown, but his expression cleared almost at once.

“You’re _Jewish!_ ” he shouted, slamming his hand on the table. Then he said, more quietly but half-laughing, “You’re still Jewish, right?”

“You don’t just stop being Jewish, dumbass,” Eddie cut in.

“I know that,” Richie said, rolling his eyes. “But you can stop...doing kosher, or whatever it is."

“Keeping kosher,” Stan corrected. Lip twitching, he added, “And I am still Jewish. Thank you for asking.”

The mood grew boisterous and festive after that, the Losers swapping snippets of personal details and trying to fill in their blurry mental pictures of each other. It was absurd to have lost touch with each other so completely for all these years! The sinister, stormy weight seemed to dissolve with each joke, each smile, each resurfacing memory of their childhood years in Derry. 

Ben ordered a round of shots as the lazy Susan was loaded up with food. Following a toast, Stan watched, brow raised, as Richie set his glass on the table and leaned his face down to it. “What…?”

Richie closed his lips around the entire circumference of the glass’s rim and carefully lifted it off the table without using his hands. Then he straightened fully and tilted his head back, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed the drink down, glass held in place by nothing but his mouth.

“Nice stunt.” It might’ve been impressive if they were still a group of thirteen-year-olds. As it was, Richie just looked very foolish and had dribbled some of the alcohol down his chin. Stan rolled his eyes before throwing his own shot back like a regular person.

Richie snorted and rocked forward slightly, letting the glass tumble unceremoniously back to the table. Without wiping his face, he turned his attention to Eddie for about the fiftieth time. There was something erratic about the energy between them. But there was something familiar, too. It seemed...normal. And the sense of normalcy was just enough to prevent Stan from relocating to the other side of the table.

“So wait, Eddie, you got married?”

...His eyes might roll out of their sockets though.

Before the drinks, Eddie had mentioned his house in New York and, in passing, his marriage. Now Richie proceeded to devolve the topic into a very loud Jabba the Hutt impression delivered to Stanley’s right ear. In the ensuing laughter, Richie started fussing over Ben’s physique. And then, mortifyingly, over Stan’s.

“And for _what?_ ” Richie snickered. “Guys, get this: he’s an _accountant_.”

...Which segued into a brief discussion of careers. Richie found Eddie’s risk analysis job _very_ entertaining, which, in turn, everyone _else_ found very entertaining. With disproportionate rage at everyone’s response to Richie’s lampooning, Eddie turned to Ben and demanded, “What the fuck are _you_ laughing at?”

Beverly diffused the situation by proposing another toast. After the clinking of glasses, they all settled back into the chatty, celebratory atmosphere. Bev grabbed Richie’s wrist, seeming to invite a kiss (Stan caught Eddie’s taut, anxious grin but wasn’t sure anyone else did), only to jab her chopsticks in his face. The group, intoxicated both by alcohol and by their togetherness, went wild as Richie clapped and brushed fallen food from his lap. Even Stan found himself laughing.

During a pause in the eating and laughter, Eddie started grilling Richie on his lifestyle choices. Richie denounced Eddie’s assertion that Richie needed to exercise regularly.

“Dude, why the hell should I work out?”

“A sedentary lifestyle increases, like, every cause of mortality. Your blood pressure—”

“Eddie, nobody except you actually cares about their blood pressure.”

Stan sighed and settled against the back of his chair. “I think a lot of people worry about their blood pressure, Richie.”

“Do you worry about your blood pressure?”

“Not specifically, but—”

“No, you don’t.”

Stan rolled his eyes.

“So do you work out, Edward? Hmm? You lift weights or something?”

“Sometimes,” Eddie snapped with fiery defensiveness..

Richie abruptly pushed Stan’s plate out of the way and planted his right elbow on the table. “Arm-wrestle me. I bet I’ll win.”

“I—what? No.”

But Richie would not take no for an answer. “Arm-wrestle me, Eddie!” he insisted eagerly, slapping his left palm on the table. “Come on, get your arm up here.”

“God, are you twelve? Why should I arm-wrestle you?”

Richie turned to the rest of the table and announced, “Stop what you’re doing! Eds and I are arm-wrestling, and you all have to watch me beat him or he’ll never admit he lost to me and my sedentary blood pressure!”

“Ugh, fuck you,” Eddie muttered. But his expression threatened a smile as his right hand gripped Richie’s.

Bev counted them down. Resignedly, Stan pushed his chair back from the table to reduce his likelihood of getting inadvertently punched during the proceedings.

Richie won. Stan thought he saw the moment when Eddie’s strength wavered: He and Richie were lobbing distractions at each other _(Let’s take our shirts off and kiss!)_ , but then there was a moment when they were both quiet, nothing but eye contact and clasped hands between them. And that’s when Richie had slammed Eddie’s hand into the empty space beside the table where Stan’s lap would have been.

The meal was winding down now. There were some reminiscences of group memories—running from Bowers, hanging out in the Barrens, racing their bicycles on sunny summer afternoons—and then they broke off into side conversations as the hostess brought over a bowl of fortune cookies. Stanley got caught in the middle of an argument about whether Eddie should be worried about diabetes.

“You just read shit on the internet and freak yourself out,” Richie said.

“Do you have a family history of diabetes?” Stan asked reasonably.

“Of course he doesn’t, Stanley.”

But just then, Stan became aware of what Ben was saying on the other side of the table.

“Now that we’re all here, everything just keeps coming back faster and faster. Y’know, all of it.”

With a pang, Stanley thought of the weight. The storm.

“Yeah,” Bev said, nodding.

Richie, effectively distracted from the topic of Eddie’s WebMD paranoia, said, in a voice devoid of its typical sarcasm. “Yeah, y’know, when Mike called me, I threw up. Isn’t that weird? Like, I got nervous. I got, like, sick and I threw up.”

Stan frowned, saw Eddie shift slightly beside him. Felt a sort of relief.

“But I feel fine now,” Richie went on, with an uncharacteristic honesty. “I feel very relieved to be here with you guys.” He peered around at everyone’s expressions. “Why’s everybody looking at me like this?”

“When Mike called me, I crashed my car,” Eddie confessed.

“Seriously?” Bill said from across the table.

“Yeah.”

“Man, I hear ya,” said Ben. “I mean, my heart was literally, like, pounding right out of my chest.”

“That wouldn’t be literal,” Stan said before he could stop himself. The others turned toward him. “His heart, it wouldn’t literally pound out of his chest,” he mumbled. “It’s a wording thing… Never mind.” He crossed his arms. “I know what you mean, though. I felt it too.”

“I thought it was only me,” Bev said.

“It was like pure...f-fuh-fuh—” Bill started stuttering for the first time the whole night.

“Fear,” Mike finished for him. “It’s fear, what you felt.”

The cheerful atmosphere deflated palpably as Mike made them all remember It.

It.

Stanley’s fingers brushed the little scars on his face. He remembered what had caused them now. He didn’t _want_ to, but he _did_.

It was back.

 _Like a cicada,_ Stan thought, his hands dropping to his lap as Mike continued.

A man had died. A child had been taken.

“...We made an oath…”

Stan’s skin broke out in goosebumps. He thought of the letters he’d written.

_An oath._

Everyone sat grimly for a moment after Mike finished talking.

Richie broke the silence. “Well, that shit got dark fast. Thanks, Mike.” He picked up a fortune cookie. “Let’s see if there’s anything better than that in here.”

But before a single one of them could crack open a fortune cookie, there was a great _THUD_ from the center of the table. The fortune cookies started rattling in their bowl.

Stan leapt from his chair and backed away from the table before the rest of the group even moved, his eyes on a cookie that was cracking open on its own.

No, not on its own… It was being cracked open from the _inside_ . There was some _thing_ inside it.

Shit had gotten dark fast, alright.

“What the fuck is that, man?” Richie asked, starting to move away from the table too. All around the table, the Losers were shifting their chairs away, eyes locked on the multiple cookies that were now breaking open. From one cookie emerged what looked like a grotesquely overgrown bug with the head of a baby.

 _Let’s get the hell out of here,_ Stan wanted to say. He was ready to bolt, but only if he knew the others were close behind. And he couldn’t get the words out.

The baby-headed creature started shrieking and scurried across the table.

Everyone else had gotten to their feet at this point, though their distance from the table varied.

“Shit,” Richie said reflexively as more fortune cookies jumped from the bowl. The next one to break open revealed a wet, tentacled eyeball.

None of these things made any kind of logical sense. Eyeballs didn’t have tentacles. And bugs didn’t look like that, nor did they grow baby heads.

“Hey!” Richie shouted. “Hey, that fortune cookie’s looking at me! Shit!” he repeated, staggering backward toward Stan as the tentacled eye started to move across the tabletop.

Stan could grab him. He wouldn’t have to say anything. One tug on his shirtsleeve, and he’d probably run for the door with Stanley. But what about the others?

“I don’t wanna be here,” Eddie babbled across the room as he backed farther away from the table, his hands over his face.

Stan understood the impulse. His own hands were raised halfway to his own face as he stood there frozen in place. If they’d all faced such horrible things before, why couldn’t the muscle memory kick in? Surely it would at any minute, and they would crush these hideous little monsters and high-tail it out of this restaurant.

“I wanna go home… I don’t wanna be here… _Holy shit_.”

Some creature with batlike wings had forced its way out of a cookie and was flapping toward Eddie and Ben.

“Eddie!” Richie blurted from beside Stan. Had Stan not been so frozen, and had their table not been under siege by fortune cookie demons, he might’ve raised his eyebrows at him. Eddie was quite alright, at least physically. Ben was fending off the bat-winged creature handily. They could all so easily leave. They just needed to get _moving_.

But it seemed logic only counted for so much.

Burning black liquid came sizzling up out of the fortune cookie dish and began to spill across the table. More winged things began to break free. Bill dodged one.

Suddenly, with a shout of, “It’s not real!” Mike raised a chair. He was going to bring it smashing down on the restaurant table, in this public location where they had surely made enough noise to draw attention to themselves, and almost certainly effect property damage.

“ _What?_ ” Stan spluttered, words finally finding their way off his tongue. “Let’s just _go_.”

“Good call, man,” Richie said. He glanced at Stan, and then his eyes were on Eddie as he called, “Hey. Hey, Mike! Time to bail, man.” He dove to retrieve his jacket, then also grabbed Stan’s sweater and Bev’s backpack before pulling Bev herself away from where she was cowering against the wall. “Come on. Let’s get the fuck out.”

In a rush, all seven of them dashed for the main dining area. Stan noticed Richie’s hand hovering at Eddie’s back as they all nearly tripped over each other in their effort to increase the distance between themselves and the table. About halfway to the buffet line, they paused in a huddle. They’d not been followed by any of the little beasts, though they were attracting a few odd looks from the restaurant’s other patrons. From here, it appeared that everything at the table was normal.

Richie’s hand fell back to his side. His other arm held the hastily-gathered belongings. Stan took his sweater back.

“Well,” Mike said, looking around at the others. “This… This is what It does. You see? This is why I needed to call you back. We _can_ stop it. But, um…” He patted his pockets, pulled out his battered wallet. “I’ll pay for dinner, and then I can tell you about the plan.”

“Fuck,” Eddie said breathlessly as Mike stepped away toward the hostess stand.

“Let’s go outside,” Bev suggested, taking her backpack off Richie’s arm and glancing once more at their table. “Get some air while Mike pays.”

They exited the restaurant. Bev sat on the curb and lit a cigarette, staring straight ahead with a slight crease between her brows.

Eddie started pacing, clearly agitated. “No,” he muttered. “No, I don’t want anything to do with this.”

Stan didn’t either, really. He sat next to Bev.

“Hi,” she said on her next exhale.

Smoke wafted into his face. He wrinkled his nose but didn’t complain.

“Anyone else really _not_ want to hear whatever Mike’s plan is?” Richie asked. He was standing a short distance from where Eddie was pacing, jacket back on and hands in his pockets.

“We can’t just run from everything, Rich,” Ben said.

“Can’t we?” Richie challenged as Mike came out of the restaurant and joined them. “I say we all pack up and get gone.”

“No,” Mike said. “I have a plan.”

“Yeah, and I just told everyone my plan.” He looked around at the others, gaze starting and ending on Eddie. “Who’s with me?”

Eddie raised his hand. “I have to go pack up my shit. You?”

Richie nodded once.

“We made a promise to each other!” Mike appealed.

“So let’s unmake the promise!”

“Other people are gonna die,” Ben pointed out. “Didn’t you say someone was already killed a week ago, Mike?”

“Other people die every day, man!” Richie countered, backing away from the group. “Fuck this. Eddie, let’s get out of here.”

“Guys, please. Listen.”

“Mike,” Eddie said, shrugging semi-apologetically. “That was...that was really fucked up in there. We didn’t know we were coming here for that. You didn’t fucking tell us. So…” He raised both hands, palms out, and departed for his vehicle.

“This is prime time for leaving, Stanley!” Richie called over his shoulder as he strode to his own car. “Just saying!”

Stan stood but didn’t leave.

“Stan,” Mike entreated. “Stay. Please. I have more. I have a plan. What I told you at dinner, it wasn’t everything.”

That, in itself, wasn’t very promising.

“What, have, um, have more bad things happened?” Stanley asked apprehensively.

“No—the plan! I have more to tell you about my plan. I’ve been reading. Researching. Talking to people. It’s all… I just need to explain it. Please, we need to do this.”

Stan wasn’t always good at split-second decisions. He was one to weigh the pros and cons. But Mike’s plea was so genuine. And Stan thought he might be right...that they all needed to do something. Together. And now. 

“Eddie said he has to pack up,” Stan said wryly. “That should buy you some time.”

Relief bloomed on Mike’s face. “Stan… You’ll stay? That’s good. Good. We need everyone, though. I was thinking of showing something to...to Bill.”

“O...kay,” Bill agreed, seeming perplexed.

“What’s everyone else doing?” Stan asked as Richie, then Eddie drove out of the parking lot.

“I don’t really have anywhere else to go,” Bev said. “I took a cab here. So if anyone’s going back to the Town House, I’ll hitch a ride.”

“You can ride with me,” Ben offered.

“Are you staying, Ben?” Mike asked urgently.

“I—”

“We need to be together on this,” Mike pressed.

“But Richie and Eddie…” Ben seemed at a loss.

“If we hurry, we can still catch them,” Bev said, standing up and hitching the strap of her backpack higher on her shoulder as she tossed her cigarette butt to the pavement. She seemed distracted. Solemn. Not filled with Mike’s urgency or quite the same unease Stanley felt.

Mike nodded. “Okay. Okay. Bill and I will come meet the rest of you there once we’re finished.”

“And then we hear the plan?” Stan asked. He thought Mike was being pretty stingy with the information, but he wanted to trust him. Felt like he _could_ trust him.

“Yes,” Mike promised. “I’ll explain everything.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Kat and AJ and Mel for beta reading this chapter!
> 
> I've lifted some things from the movie, and one line (about unplugging from reality) from the book because I liked it. Hooray. And a lil heads-up for brief discussion of suicidal ideation.
> 
> I dithered _so much_ over this chapter because...well. End notes exist for a reason. I will explain there. Enjoy!

**CHAPTER THREE**

Stan pulled in behind Ben on the street outside the Derry Town House, and the three of them hurried inside. He recognized the two other cars parked on the street as Eddie’s and Richie’s, so they must not have been too swift in gathering their things.

Bev strode purposefully to the check-in desk, Stan and Ben close behind her. But no one appeared when Bev tapped the call bell. Management must have stepped out for the night.

She slumped against the counter. “I’m not the only one with this feeling, am I?” she asked tensely.

“What feeling?” Ben replied.

“The feeling that Mike’s right,” Bev said. She turned to face Ben and Stan. “I’m remembering things.” Her eyes were frantic. “I’m trying to figure out how to explain. I—”

There were hurried, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Richie came rushing down with a duffel bag over his shoulder.

“Rest of you guys heading out too?” he asked as he spotted them. Then he turned back to holler up the stairs, “Eduardo! Ándale! Let’s go!”

“Richie,” Bev said urgently, going to him. “Don’t go just yet. I’m remembering something.”

Richie frowned, appearing reluctant as he asked, “Remembering what?”

“I’ve been having these...these dreams. These terrible dreams. I’ve seen all of us die.”

Richie’s mouth worked soundlessly until he finally managed an alarmed, “ _What?_ ”

Beverly stared at him for a moment, then turned away and stepped behind the counter, scanning the key box. “Stan, here’s yours,” she said after a moment. She swiped two keys from their compartments and held one out to him. “Did everyone else check in?” she asked the group, as though it were a perfectly routine thing to distribute hotel room keys immediately following such a horrific revelation.

“...I’ll look for mine,” Ben replied, apparently recovering fastest from the shock of Bev’s words and joining her behind the counter.

“Wait, wait, what the fuck, Bev,” Richie said before she could turn back to help Ben search the key box. “What do you mean you’ve seen all of us die?”

“Dreams?” Stan asked. He had had dreams too. He didn’t remember them being anything like _that_ , but maybe he would if he thought hard enough.

“Yes,” Bev breathed, looking terrified.

A series of clumsy, intermittent thunks sounded from the stairs, and they all turned to see Eddie lugging down two large suitcases.

Bev strode over to him. “Wait,” she urged. “Please wait.”

Eddie looked confused. “I, uh, still have to get my toiletry bag,” he said, gesturing up the stairs.

“Bev decided to tell us she’s had dreams about us all dying,” Richie explained irritably. “But she won’t tell us what the fuck she means.”

“I _will_ ,” Bev defended. “It’s hard to explain when you can barely remember, Richie.” She started toward the doorway into the lounge area. “Come on. Let’s sit down.”

Eddie frowned uncertainly around at the others, but Ben had already started after Bev. Richie waved Eddie along, and he abandoned his suitcases to follow Ben. Richie and Stan brought up the rear.

They assembled in the lounge, all eyes on Bev, who sat in one of the upholstered chairs and fumbled in her backpack for a cigarette, which she lit with a shaky hand. Stan sat across from her, wanting to reach out and comfort her somehow, though he suspected there was very little comfort to be had in this situation.

There were several minutes of quiet as they all waited for Bev to speak. Even Richie, who typically took it upon himself to fill any silence lasting longer than sixty seconds, managed to read a room for once and set to half-browsing the bottles behind the bar, not saying a word.

Bev finished her cigarette. The silence in the room continued even after she put the butt out in the ashtray on the table beside her.

How many minutes passed? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? Stanley didn’t know. It wasn’t the type of anticipation that inspired him to check his watch.

Finally, Bev spoke.

“I think...every night since Derry I’ve been having these nightmares. People in pain. People…” Her eyes met Stan’s, but the look in hers was distant, as though she weren’t really seeing him. “And the people...the ones I can remember...were us.” Her eyes refocused unnervingly as she went on, “We died by our own hands. But it wasn’t… It was because of It.” She looked at Stan as though expecting him to reply. When he didn’t, Eddie cleared his throat and her gaze turned to where he stood by the bar.

“So, um.” Eddie shifted his weight twitchily and scrutinized her. “You’re saying you had dreams about us all killing ourselves?”

She nodded slowly, lips slightly parted.

“But that…” He looked around at the others in desperate appeal. “That doesn’t mean it’s _true_. You have nightmares. People have nightmares. _I_ have nightmares.”

“Quiet,” Stan said calmly, still watching Bev. Her eyes moved back to him. “What did you see?”

“I’ve watched every one of us this week—”

She jumped at the sound of the front door opening. Bill and Mike came in, Bill looking a bit worse for wear.

“Hey,” he said, looking around at them scattered around the room in dismal silence. “Wuh-what’s going on?”

“Bev saw us all kill ourselves in her dreams,” Richie said. “Which, I gotta be honest, is a really fucked up thing to just drop on somebody.”

“Richie,” Ben admonished.

“No, it’s okay,” Bev said, twisting in her chair to look at Bill and Mike. “It’s true. But I… Mike, what was your plan?”

“It’s a ritual,” Bill said, watching Bev intently. “Dreams?”

“Bev, what did you see?” Mike asked eagerly.

She shook her head. “It’s horrible. I’ve dreamed, for years now, about horrible things happening. To other people, and to us. And I never really remembered it all clearly when I woke up. You know how dreams are, right?”

Mike nodded.

“But I can remember pieces now. The parts about us. Our deaths. And it feels _true_. Like a...like a premonition.” She glanced around at the others and then looked back to Mike. “Does that sound crazy?”

Stan didn’t think it did. And Mike, as it turned out, didn’t either.

He’d brought his notebook with him and started flipping through it now. “The...the deadlights,” he said, skimming the pages. “I wonder…”

“The deadlights,” Bev echoed.

“What?” Richie asked.

“Sh-she was the only one who got caught in the deadlights,” Bill said.

“The deadlights make you see shit?” Eddie asked, frowning.

“She was...she was in a trance. I have it written down.” Mike tapped his fingers to the page. “You said it was like a trance, Bev, that you saw us all back in the cistern as adults.”

Bev nodded with dawning comprehension. “I remember.” She looked around at the others. “Then this must… What I saw _was_ real. What I saw back then was real enough for us to make this promise. The death dreams must be real too.” Her gaze landed on Stanley last and she fell silent, expression thoughtful and questioning.

“Um,” Stan said, feeling as though he ought to say something in response to her look. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Why should we fucking stay just because of some fucked up dreams Bev had?” Richie demanded, eyes flickering to Eddie but darting away immediately. “All due respect, but the premonition theory could be total bullshit.”

“What Bev saw _will_ come to pass,” Mike insisted. “I’m sure of it. I have… I have a ritual. We—”

“A _ritual?_ Mike…”

“It’ll all make sense once I can explain. Just give me one day,” Mike pled. “One day. I want to try my plan. It’ll work.”

“So why can’t you explain it now?” Stan asked. Mike had told him he’d explain everything, after all.

“I think it’ll be better if I can show you,” Mike said apologetically. “And it’ll be better if we go in daylight. The Ritual of Chüd—”

“The Ritual of _what?_ ” Richie scoffed.

Bill interrupted before Mike could continue his appeal. “I’ve seen it,” he said. “The ritual he’s talking about. It’s the only way.”

It was clever, Stan thought, that Mike had prioritized winning Bill over before the others. Some of Richie and Eddie’s aggressive skepticism seemed to fizzle out, and Stan himself felt just slightly reassured.

Ben was the first to respond. “I’ll stay.”

“Me too,” Stan said.

“And I will,” said Beverly.

They all turned expectantly to Richie and Eddie.

Eddie grimaced, rocked back on his heels and up on the balls of his feet. “Shit,” he muttered before saying more loudly: “Okay, I guess I’ll stay.”

“Rich?” Mike asked.

Richie relented under their waiting gazes. “Fuck. Fine, I’ll stay.”

“Okay,” Mike said. He nodded at the rest of the Losers, looking relieved. “I think we all need to get some rest, and then… I’ll come back in the morning. At about four-thirty?”

Richie groaned.

“We need to do this,” Mike insisted. “As soon as we can. As soon as it’s light out. But you’ve all traveled to come here, and it’s late, and we should all try to sleep for a few hours.”

There was a murmur of group assent and then each of the Losers separated to get their luggage or go to their rooms. Mike followed Ben and Stan out, waiting by his car as they grabbed their bags.

“I’ll see you in the morning!” he called once they were heading back up the front steps.

 _A promise_.

“Goodnight,” Stan called back as Ben raised a hand in acknowledgement of Mike’s words.

“I wonder what we’re doing tomorrow,” Ben mused as they reentered the lobby, a hefty shoulder bag slung across his body.

Stan made a noncommittal noise as they started up the stairs. He wasn’t looking forward to it, whatever it was. The fear was only dampened by the Losers’ togetherness, not entirely dispelled. Meanwhile, memories were still sliding into place. He could remember bits and pieces as though they were from dreams or scenes in old movies, but there were gaps.

“What floor are you on?” Ben asked at the landing.

“Next one up,” Stan replied, glancing at his keytag.

“I’m on this one,” Ben said, nodding down the hallway. “Goodnight, man.” He gave Stan’s shoulder a bracing little shake before departing down the hall.

Stan continued up to the next floor. As he unlocked the door to his room, he spotted Richie rounding the corner with a bucket of ice. He gave Stan an apathetic sort of salute and disappeared into his own room a few doors down.

Once in the room, Stan sat heavily on the bed, suitcase at his feet. He’d had an idea, kind of. Not about It, or about Mike’s plan. Not exactly. But he’d felt such a sad, frustrated pang earlier, again and again, throughout Richie and Eddie’s exchanges and every time Stan caught Richie’s eyes returning to Eddie. It was all so familiar, yet so muddled. But he thought he had been right, back when he was writing the letters, to add something different to Richie’s. They were adults after all. Long past the time when they could dodge dealing with things. The certain necessity of their return to Derry proved that much.

And maybe it would do Richie good to know that Stan had been so afraid to return to Derry that he had started methodically unplugging himself from reality before Richie’s call had interrupted him.

He unzipped his suitcase and rifled through the envelopes, pulling the post-it noted one from the stack. _To the Mouth?_ Trashmouth.

He discarded the post-it and, considering the matter for mere moments, brought the envelope to Richie’s room. Rapped his knuckles against the door.

Richie opened the door immediately. Upon seeing Stan, he raised his eyebrows. “Sup.”

“Hey,” Stan said softly. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Stanny, you can talk to me for an hour.”

Stan rolled his eyes.

Richie stepped back from the doorway. “Get in here. Mi casa es su casa.”

“Sure.” He shut the door behind him and looked down at the envelope in his hands.

“You were pretty quiet at dinner, dude,” Richie remarked in an off-hand way as he crossed to the minibar.

“And you were pretty loud,” Stan countered.

“Yep.” Richie put some ice in a glass and poured half a bottle of water over it. “Hydration,” he said, raising the glass in Stanley’s general direction and grabbing several nips from the minibar before striding to the bed, where he set the water on the nightstand and sat down to lounge against the headboard. He inspected one of the nips and uncapped it.

“I, uh,” Stan began, thinking it might’ve been smart to plan what exactly he was going to say. But the point was that the _letter_ was going to say it.

“Do not worry about me, Stanley,” Richie said, blithely gulping down the alcohol. “I am only... _very_ slightly completely drunk. I am remarkably coherent up to and possibly during the blackout stage. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Stan held out the letter. “I wrote this,” he said. “And I think you should read it.”

Richie took the envelope, grinning. “A love letter? For me? You shouldn’t have.”

Stan shook his head. “It’s not—It's important, Richie. I wrote it for different circumstances, but I think you should still read it.”

Richie looked curious as he tore the envelope open. “Okay, well, I’m reading it.”

“Okay. Good.”

Richie gave the letter an extravagant shake to unfold it and began to read. His eyes had barely scanned the first few lines of writing when he stiffened, his shoulders rising from the headboard as he sat up straighter, dropping the empty miniature bottle onto the duvet. His expression shifted to an alarmed frown.

“Stan,” he said, tone strained. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s not—” Stan started. Couldn’t he just keep reading and get to the important stuff? “I mean, I didn’t—” He knew the words _suicide note_ and the rest of the beginning bit of the letter might be jarring. But he had specifically written that it _wasn’t_ a suicide note. And in any event, he’d clearly not gone through with what the letter indicated he’d done, because here he stood.

But it seemed Richie was unwilling to move on to the rest of the letter.

“What the hell is this, man?” he asked, voice increasing in pitch.

“It’s a letter I wrote. I just, I thought it’d be easier to give it to you, but I—” _...was clearly mistaken_. He made to grab the page back, but Richie pulled it out of his reach.

“ _When_ did you write this?” Richie demanded, kicking his legs over the side of the bed and staring up at Stan.

Stan swallowed. “Last night, after Mike called. I thought it… Well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense now, I guess. But I hadn’t remembered much yet. So…”

Richie continued staring at him, looking distressed. 

“Can you just read the rest?” Stan said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “I… I can tell you about it. But can you just read it all first?”

Richie seemed to want to argue but instead tore his eyes from Stan and read on.

“Stanley,” he said once he’d reached the end, jostling his glasses as he scrubbed a hand down his face. “What. Is. This.”

“I was…” Stan crossed his arms. Uncrossed them again when it didn’t feel right. “I was going to kill myself,” he admitted. It was simultaneously frightening and freeing to state it as such. In his head he hadn’t quite reached that finality. He’d just been...organizing.

Organizing his death.

And in the letter… Well, in the letter he’d spoken of taking himself off the board. Very strategic. Not a crime of despair.

Richie’s mouth was open, just slightly. He seemed upset by this news, yet less disturbed than he had been before Stan had stated it so plainly.

“Stanley…” he said softly, almost warningly. Nobody _wanted_ to hear about bad things.

“The bath… I was going to slit my wrists,” Stanley persisted, wanting to tell everything. “With a razor. I—”

But Richie interrupted, reaching out and grabbing both of Stan’s wrists as if to reassure himself they were real and intact. “Why?” he asked hoarsely.

Stan looked at him flatly.

“You were…” Richie swallowed. “You were scared.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re all fucking scared, man.”

“Yeah, but…” Stan shook his head. “I think I’ve sometimes had dreams. Not like Bev’s, but just...fear. And _not_ remembering. But _knowing_ that something was wrong and would come back and wreck everything.” He tugged his wrists from Richie’s grip. He let go easily. “So I was going to just...die. I guess.” The logic wasn’t clear from this side of things.

Richie’s eyes were bright. He looked away from Stan’s face, down at the floor. “Maybe I would’ve too,” he muttered grimly. “But I’m too chickenshit.”

Stan crossed his arms and perched beside Richie on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know whether that counts as chickenshit.”

“Fuck,” was apparently all Richie could think of to say in reply.

They sat in silence for a moment. Stan thought of Bev, and how, according to her dreams, Richie _would_ kill himself if they didn’t stop It. He expected it was in Richie’s mind too.

“I didn’t really come in here to talk about all that,” Stan said. “I came in here to talk about, uh. You.”

Richie frowned as he reached for another nip. “Me?”

“You and Eddie.”

Richie froze. “What about me and Eddie?” 

“You know,” Stan said, uncrossing his arms and leaning back on one arm as he surveyed Richie. “Or maybe you don’t remember.”

Richie’s gaze fixated glumly on nothing. Stan observed how not-Trashmouth his body language was, how it had been all night. Apart from the hugs of greeting and the arm-wrestling event, he’d kept to himself. Richie had never had such a tight personal bubble when they were kids, Stan was certain. The default was broad arm gestures, friendly nudges. Now he was far more conservative with his physical presence.

Stan wondered how long that transformation had taken. It was one that made him a little sad.

“I wrote a different letter for everyone else,” Stan said. “I only put the thing about being proud in yours.”

Richie remained quiet. Then he lurched to his feet and rushed to the bathroom in a fit of retching. Stan grimaced as there was a sickly splattering noise, a gasping inhale, the sound of spitting, and the flush of the toilet.

“Fuck,” he heard Richie grumble as the sink ran. After a moment, the water shut off and Richie stepped back out into the room and slumped once more on the bed between Stan and the collection of minibar items. “Sorry. I sort of have a...thing. Yeah.”

“A stress-vomiting thing,” Stan surmised.

Richie shrugged, made a disgusted lip-smacking noise, and finally reached for the water he’d poured earlier.

“Well, you didn’t throw up on me, so thanks for that,” Stan said.

“Oh, shut up,” Richie muttered between cautious sips.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Stan asked, knowing Richie would know what he meant.

“No.”

“Okay.” Stan watched Richie take another sip of water. “But… I notice. I noticed before. When we were kids. And maybe the others did? And I can’t remember if we ever _talked_ about it then. I don’t _think_ we did. But we can talk, if you need to. It seems…” He trailed off, not sure what to say. That it seemed horrible and lonely and painful?

“Does it?” Richie deflected absently, setting the glass down and fumbling for the remaining liquor.

“You don’t have to be _out_ ,” Stan said. “But if you said something to the others, and even to Eddie, it might take some weight off.”

“You think I’m about to fucking talk to _Eddie_ about it?” Richie replied. “ _Now?_ ”

“Well, it’s still relevant now, isn’t it?”

“So what if it is?”

“I was just asking.”

“You want one of these?” Richie diverted, offering Stan one of the little bottles. “They’re not great. The good shit is at the bar downstairs. Which _did_ appear unattended…”

“I’ll settle,” Stan said, smiling slightly as he took the miniature vodka. He wasn’t much of a drinker but for the occasional beer, and had perhaps emerged the soberest from their dinner at the Jade. But he could have a drink with Richie. Especially after dumping so much on him.

As he undid the cap, Richie took a sip of his own and nudged his shoulder against Stan’s. “I’m fucking glad you’re here. You know that?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“Don’t fucking kill yourself in the bath, or I’ll kick your ass.”

“I won’t.”

“I don't think I’m going to talk to Eddie.”

“Okay.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘okay’?”

“I mean. Um. Okay.”

“This is me trying to get you to convince me to talk to him, in case that went over your head.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I need more than that, Stanley. You tell me that all the time.” He frowned. “I mean, I think you do.”

“Everyone does.” Stan shook his head and was unsuccessful in staving off a yawn. “Figure it out yourself. But I don’t think he’d be mad if you told him how you feel.”

Richie didn’t say anything.

“Too chickenshit for that too?” Stan asked.

Richie sighed. “I… He’s married, man. He’s a married man. And I’m…” He trailed off.

“You’re what?” Stan asked, grimacing as he sipped the cheap vodka.

“I’m… I’m a famous comedian who tells trashy jokes about my fake girlfriend.”

“Written by other people,” Stan added.

“How the hell do you know that?”

“I know stuff,” Stan said. He didn’t, really. He’d guessed.

“Is that better or worse?” Richie asked. “That I don’t even write my own shit?”

“I don’t know,” Stan said thoughtfully. “I think it’s pretty bad either way.”

Richie collapsed backward on the bed with a heavy sigh.

“There are worse things, though,” Stan went on mildly. “And I was joking, about it being pretty bad. Mostly.”

“Ah, fuck off.”

“So are you going to talk to him?”

“Now?”

“If you think you got all the puke out of your system, then sure.”

“Later, then.”

Stan half-laughed. Richie was as much a mess as he’d always been. Just...grown up now. “Are you going to sleep?”

Richie pushed his glasses up his forehead and scrubbed at his eyes. “I guess. Mike said we should. And who the fuck knows what he wants us to do with him tomorrow, right? Probably some kind of crazy shit.”

“Probably.”

Richie sat back up, gripping Stan’s shoulder. “Sleep well, dude,” he said earnestly. “You deserve it.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yes.”

Stan removed Richie’s hand from his shoulder. “Goodnight, Rich.”

“Goodnight, Stanley.”

Stan finished his nip of vodka and, with a little wave, dropped it into the trash on his way out of the room.

He considered, on the way back to his own room, whether there was any reason to tell the other Losers about the letters. But no… The time to do that would have been when the others were still so reluctant to stay. Stanley’s tale of the previous evening might have convinced them that what Bev had dreamed was true. Maybe he would talk to her, find out what exactly she had seen of him, whether it matched last night’s plan…

He checked the clock on the nightstand. There were only about four and a half hours before Mike was coming back.

So, for now, he would sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s the end! Hear me out, hear me out...
> 
> This fic is inspired by [this post](https://losersweregoingclownhunting.tumblr.com/post/189187549589/imagine-if-after-mike-called-richie-the-first) by tumblr user losersweregoingclownhunting (who also happens to be on ao3 as [inawaragainstreality](https://archiveofourown.com/users/inawaragainstreality/pseuds/inawaragainstreality)). Milo had listed Stozier as a favorite brotp on their Secret Santa form, so I when I saw the post on my dash I was like “Why, yes! That will work.” When I started writing, I knew what I wanted to write, and I knew it would work as a one-shot. And then it turned out that what I wanted to write would require more words/time/effort than I was able to manage before the Secret Santa deadline. And it _pained_ me to split it up into chapters. But I figured the first part worked okay on its own and could stand as a chapter, and I could deal with the rest later. The trouble is, this ending isn’t satisfying to me as the last installment of a multi-chapter fic. I _could_ edit the ao3 post to have it all in one chapter, but that seems disingenuous in a way and I’m pretty sure I would lose all the lovely comments past chapter 1. So I don’t love that idea.
> 
> I suppose the other option is...to write more. To un-complete this and make it a bigger fic. I wanted my Secret Santa gift to be something I knew I could finish, so I didn’t let the idea grow too much...but I do have some thoughts. I know some of what happens next. I can figure out how to make an entire story, if you give me some time. Like...you _know_ where it’s going, approximately. But shall I write it?
> 
> I am turning the issue over to you. What do _you_ think? (Especially Milo!) Do you need more story? I must warn you: I work slowly and am writing something for the [reddiebang](https://reddiebang.tumblr.com/) currently, so I wouldn’t be able to come back to this for a while.
> 
> So yeah. This is the end. For now. Thank you for reading! Make some noise in the comments if you want more of this. I love you all so much. <3


End file.
